Umbilical cord blood, which is rich in stem cells, can be extracted and frozen for later use.
Injecting autistic children with blood from their umbilical cord may significantly alleviate their symptoms, a study suggests.

 

 

American researchers said they had seen improvements in the children’s sociability and communication skills after the treatment, possibly because stem cells in the blood help to curb inflammation and forge new connections in the brain. However, the claims have been challenged by a British scientist who argues that the effect could be largely illusory. It is estimated that about one in 100 people in the UK has a condition on the autism spectrum, which encompasses a diverse range of neurological states. The most common hallmark is difficulty with social interactions.

 

While there are many therapies that can help people to live with autism, there is no medical treatment proven effectively to alter its underlying biology, which is highly complicated and not completely understood.

 

Some scientists have speculated that an infusion of cord blood, which remains in the umbilical cord and placenta for a little while after birth and is sometimes “banked” in freezers for use at a later date, may hold the key to treatment. The serum is rich in stem cells and other factors that could affect a child’s immune and nervous systems, although it is unclear precisely how this would work in people with autism.

Researchers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, tested this theory in a small trial involving 25 autistic children between the ages of two and six whose mothers had banked samples of their cord blood. The blood was thawed and then infused into the children’s veins while they were sedated.The researchers then measured the patients’ symptoms at six months and 12 months after the operation. The technique appeared to be safe, although there were a few minor side-effects such as agitation.

 

A majority of the children appeared to improve on almost every measure of their symptoms, particularly if they had a higher non-verbal IQ score to begin with. “Significant improvements in behaviour were found across a wide range of outcome measures in this study,” the authors wrote in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.
However, James Cusack, director of science at Autistica, the London-based autism research charity, said the work was at a very preliminary stage and had several big drawbacks. Because the study did not include any children who were given a placebo it is impossible to determine how much of the findings may have been down to the placebo effect. Another difficulty is that it is notoriously hard to measure changes in the symptoms of autism with any objective yardstick, and the main outcome chosen by the scientists, known as the Vineland scale, is imperfect, according to Dr Cusack.

 

He also noted that one of the authors, Joanne Kurtzberg, held roles at two American cord blood banks, raising a potential conflict of interest. Dr Kurtzberg is now running a larger clinical trial of the treatment, which will involve about 165 children.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blood-from-umbilical-cord-eases-autism-t0k6l98fp

LFLN REF 15092017, P.35-36